Russell Crowe Threatened To Kill A Producer With His Bare Hands

While these days Russell Crowe, who arrived at the George V Hotel in Pairs on Tuesday (April 27), is willing to give peace a chance, his temper when he started out is legendary. Remember his Naomi Campbell move in 2005?

In The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company called DreamWorks, author Nicole LaPortetalked to a lot of people about DreamWork’s Gladiator and walked away with a picture of Russell as a volatile actor would throw tantrums and walk off the set. He hated the scene where he had to say “And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next” so much that he didn’t want to do it. Allegedly he said ‘It was shit… but I’m the greatest actor in the world and I can make even shit sound good.’

The Gladiator star went to battle with producer Branko Lustig over the pay for some of his assistants with a 3 am call and a “You mother******. I will kill you with my bare hands.” He freaked out the 77-year-old Jewish concentration camp survivor so badly he called Steven Spielberg wanting out of the film.

Russel, who i did not realize was a tweeter, took to his Twitter account to say “book re dreamworks If mentions of me are eg’s of distance from the truth
waste of paper written by a lying horse’s ass.” Um what? I guess that’s what happens when you are used to speaking with your fists.

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The book by LaPorte you so eagerly quote has been branded absolute rubbish by many of the people portrayed. Odd isn’t it that supposed stories from almost 12 years ago [when production of Gladiator began] are being trotted out during promotion of Robin Hood? t

Crowe and Lustig may or may not have had words during filming, but that’s water long under the bridge. In fact, Lustig went on to work with Crowe in 2 additional films afterwards. I think we may assume he didn’t bear any grudges, nor was he frightened … in fact, I’ve seen photos of Crowe and Lustig warmly embracing when greeting one another.

I defy you to find even one example of Crowe “using his fists” while working on a film. It’s false “urban legend” perhaps, thanks to lazy gossip writers, nothing more.